


stop all the clocks

by LucentPetrichor, Salomonderiel



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, M/M, because this is fucking sad, bucketloads of it, funeral fic, have tissues handy, i am so so sorry for this, quite short, sad anyway, very short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucentPetrichor/pseuds/LucentPetrichor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salomonderiel/pseuds/Salomonderiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of them are strangers to funerals. Some just hurt more than others. Regardless of whether you turn up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop all the clocks

**Author's Note:**

> Go rail at [Abi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmonderiel/pseuds/Salmonderiel) for this. She started it and then I added to it and now I feel like sobbing.
> 
> Also, have a couple of tissues handy.

They’d only mentioned funerals once – sat across from each other filling out S.H.I.E.L.D.’s life insurance forms, Phil jokingly saying he’d like Dolly Parton’s ‘9 To 5’ played at his funeral, before they changed topic. Deaths were too likely for them to talk about. Too painful.

But when Clint is asked by Fury what songs to play at Phil’s funeral he doesn’t go with what Phil said. Instead he picks ‘Beautiful Ones’ by Poets of the Fall, and ‘Eternity’ by Robbie Williams. And makes sure that someone, anyone reads ‘Funeral Blues’, in memory of the time they once got drunk and spent a night watching chick flicks. And in memory of the time they spent that one week in England, stalking a mark who frequented second hand bookshops; he had found a book of Auden’s poetry, picked it up while not really paying attention and flipped through the pages.

 

They landed on that poem and the book was now on a shelf back at home. Home...

 

He’s told the ceremony was small. Told it was quiet, closed coffin, and several people cried. That no one read ‘Funeral Blues’. He doesn’t know. He wasn’t there.

He was at the range, as he was most days since... since it happened, shooting until his wrist is bruised and fingers bleeding, the words of the poem echoing in his head: “He was my North, my South, my East and West. My working week, and my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.” Again and again that stanza plays in his mind, while he fires arrows to the cadence of the words, hitting his target every time. Every time, the right eye of a test dummy.

 

He shoots until he runs out of arrows and switches to a handgun, words still repeating over and over, shooting until he's all out of clips and the floor is littered with cartridges. The words have changed slightly; moved on: “The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,” – a memory of how they once spent a night in a broken down helicopter in the middle of a desert, looking up at the stars from a completely different perspective; Southern hemisphere, not Northern.

 

“Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; for nothing now can ever come to any good.” – he finds an air vent, he doesn’t even know which one, crawls inside and sits curled up; too far gone for proper tears but eyes bright with ones he just can’t let fall.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you saps who want a happy ending. Again, Abi wrote bits, I wrote bits, I think I wrote the bit about the titanium jaw...  
> \-----  
> Phil, upon hearing about his funeral, punches Fury twice. Once for making everyone – for making Clint – so certain he was dead. The bastard didn’t have to be that thorough. The second punch is for not playing any jazz. Fury rolled slightly with both punches so Phil wouldn’t break his hand (titanium jaw, long story, airports hate him) but let them land without comment. Then he turned on his heel and walked out, leaving a stunned and slightly opened mouthed Hill to follow.  
> \-----  
> Full poem is by W.H. Auden, and hopefully you can see why I thought it was so appropriate for these two.
> 
> Funeral Blues
> 
> Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,   
> Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,   
> Silence the pianos and with muffled drum   
> Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. 
> 
> Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead   
> Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.   
> Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,   
> Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. 
> 
> He was my North, my South, my East and West,   
> My working week and my Sunday rest,   
> My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;   
> I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. 
> 
> The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,   
> Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,   
> Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;   
> For nothing now can ever come to any good.


End file.
